“The difficulty arises when we remain held up by our own resourcefulness applied for our advancement (P.106 of ERY)”

- Sri. Vidyadhar Joshi

Dear brothers and sisters on the path,

My Humble Pranaams.

I am humbly sharing with you my understanding on the above saying of the Revered Master, Pujya Sri RamChandraji Maharaj. Besides that, I would like to share the practical implication of the message as I feel it subtly states to all serious practicants of the Natural Path.

The sentence has been drawn from the article titled "Efficacy of Rajyoga" written by Revered Master. Let us start by understanding the context in which the topic of the seminar is stated. It starts with the following lines.

"There are many amongst us who eagerly hanker after realization and freedom, and they feel it to be their duty."

This indicates that He is talking about those who consider themselves serious in their undertaking of realization whatever it means to them. He wishes to impress upon all such persons, firstly the correct means and method and secondly the efficacy of Rajyoga or the Natural Path we are practicing. For those unfortunate ones who happen to fall upon either wrong or inefficient means, He states, they may actually lead them to further temptations for more and more enjoyment of pleasures and happiness. He states "That may perhaps be the charm to induce him further on the path of happiness. But so long as he remains held up by the charm of it his progress gets frozen. He may well be compared to a frog in the well which thinks its own narrow sphere to be the whole universe."

I will not dwell on this category of aspirants that have perchance fallen on such means as to become frogs for certainly the means and method of Natural Path if taken seriously do not lead one to becoming a frog. We are all fortunate to have come across the Natural Path whose efficacy we have all ascertained to various degrees by practicing it sincerely. Yet the seminar topic has great relevance for us.

Revered Master further states "But if our present level inspires within us a consciousness of a higher type of happiness of infinite character, we may be awakened to the idea of going further into the sphere of limitlessness. That is why they say that for every grain of knowledge the wisdom required must be at least ten times greater. If that much of wisdom is there, the goal shall definitely be in our view and we shall be inspired more and more to proceed on into the sphere of Reality."

This is where the means and methods should lead to. Following the methods correctly should lead us to keeping the Goal always in view and be inspired to move more and more towards it. How correct means and method lead one into the sphere of Reality is the efficacy that He mentions further in the same article. He mentions that we have to pass through different spheres and regions during our march towards the Goal. "These, expressed as bondages, serve for veils which do not allow us to even peep into Reality".

This is a very important point for us. The spheres and regions we have to pass through, those becoming bondage itself! Giving one analogy, this is simple to understand. If my goal is to reach New Delhi, I cannot afford to enjoy being at Nagpur on the march to New Delhi even though that happens to be my hometown and perhaps offers me other charms. That is easier said, but when I actually travel and find myself enjoying in Nagpur, I will try to come out it. That is when I become resourceful and the difficulty arises. The difficulty is in not understanding the nature of the path and not applying the means correctly. This keeps one entangled even as one struggles to wriggle out of the situation applying fully one's resourcefulness. Our intention nevertheless is right, i.e. we want to advance. But for that we apply our own resourcefulness.

Please note that Revered Master has been talking about the efficacy of Rajayoga which is efficacious enough to advance one seamlessly towards the Goal. So it is our resourcefulness that we apply for our advancement that makes our journey difficult. What is this resourcefulness really?

As I understand, this resourcefulness basically stems from keeping the self more in view than keeping the Master in view. When we keep the self more in view, even when practicing the means as given in the system, we will be struggling. The reason I feel is that when our goal is to advance more and more towards selflessness, the tendency to keep self in view goes contrary to the goal. This is a very common difficulty in sadhana. At an elementary level when we apply our resourcefulness, we find ourselves struggling with the means itself. After having advanced a little on the path, when we apply our resourcefulness, there is a danger of being held up in the very stages which we are advancing through. Fortunately the solution to come out of this difficulty is not as difficult and it significantly relieves us from our being resourceful in the capacity to hold us further. The solution to the problem would be to keep the Master ever in view and yield continuously on the path of His Grace. There is a perfect reason that His path has also been referred as path of Grace. It is His Grace alone that advances one really on the path. That however does not absolve us from our effort. Revered Master in the same message states thus - "In short the help of the Master, who has himself traveled the entire distance and has developed in himself the Divine force is of immense value. It is then alone that the Divine force begins to flow into the abhyasi from the Divine centres. The subtle force is very strong so much that in higher centers even if an abhyasi attempts to go up, he is pushed down by the effect of this strong force. In that case, it is only the Master's dynamic force that pulls him up through the flow and enables him to have a view of Reality. But something is essential for the abhyasi also. In the first place he must have full trust in the Master and must fully cooperate with him in every respect. If it is so he will positively go on developing day by day, and begin to feel himself changed and transformed."

Please note that we are not relieved of our effort but we are asked to fully cooperate.

At an elementary level, we see that when we follow the methods, our sense of self effort is very high. That is again we putting our resourcefulness into play than relying on the methods in its simplicity.

During meditation on Divine Light, we are asked to ignore thoughts as they come and this one thing becomes difficult for us. Instead of ignoring thoughts, we actually run after them especially when they are concerned with our ideas about Divinity however good they may be. Master knows what is best for us. That is the reason we are to ignore our own thoughts which is our resourceful ness coming into play as a matter of habit. So yielding to the method and Master is an attitude that should be adopted before we start the meditation. Yielding to Him and developing an attitude of waiting will help us come out of the habit of applying our mind over and above the simple method.

Likewise Pt B and Pt A and 9 pm prayer should be done in its simplicity without entertaining any doubts about their efficacy. If we entertain other thoughts than the ones the meditation prescribes, we are getting trapped in our resourcefulness.

When it comes to evening cleaning, we need to be confident of the method and not entertain doubts on whether cleaning is really happening or not. Only then it becomes a will to cleanse ourselves. At prayer before bed time, we sit in a supplicant manner; we must offer the prayer understanding its essence. We must be careful not to ask for anything in the prayer that we apparently think is needed for our advancement. I came to know once that one brother was praying at bedtime that his office environment should change so that the quality of his meditations should improve. This indicates lack of clarity of applying the given means and we then try to be as resourceful as we can be for our advancement. Yielding suffers totally in the process. Yielding should be a continuous process on the path.

These are elementary points about the methods which we seek to clarify in training programs and also later. Most recently, the book, "Three truths and trillion doubts" exhaustively addresses many issues related to the practice of the methods. It is very beneficial for all aspirants to go through these compilations which have several examples on how we have attempted to put our resourcefulness on the path. This will help us avoid such mistakes.

Coming to another important and fine aspect of sadhana, Revered Master mentions that the spheres and regions of progress are bondages themselves. When I pondered over this, it occurred to me that stages of Viveka, Interdependence, Devotion, Surrender and Balance are also binds. What I understand from this is that there is a peculiar charm when we feel these stages. We like it and this very charm and enjoyment we get from being aware of the stage we have advanced to, is capable of holding us back. To come out of these stages by our self effort alone is a very difficult task. Add to this the complications we create by our self conceited ideas and notions about Reality. He states - "It is only when a worthy Master of calibre comes up to our help, that we are able to tear them off in order to make our passage to the Absolute Reality smooth and easy." Thus we see that the support of Master through Pranahuti is indispensable. We need to have faith and confidence in Him and that we can reach such heights as He willed for the only reason that He has said so, provided of course we cooperate. It is here that yielding to Him in true sense promises to extricate us from our meshes. When an awareness of any stage is retained, implicitly the idea of self or 'I' is retained. And this is bondage however subtle it may be. Revered Master states- "In that sense I would prefer to induce people to forget themselves instead of knowing themselves."

The best way, I feel is to keep Master ever in view with idea of participating in His vision continuously yielding to Him than keeping Him in view with idea of our advancement. A sincere prayer towards that end is what will ensure we don't fall a trap to our resourcefulness. It would be apt to recall here the commentary on prayer given by Pujya Sri K.C Narayana Garu which ends with the following.

"Pray (beg) that you pray (be submissive) and continue to pray (constant remembrance) so that prayer (yielding) may continue."

Thank you very much for allowing me to share my thoughts.

Yours sincerely

Vidyadhar Joshi.